


Brittle Heart

by haganenoheichou



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Death, Doctor!Kageyama, Innocent Enough, Like incredibly sad, M/M, Patient!Hinata, This is going to be very very sad, medical drama, terminal illness, will break your heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8210324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/haganenoheichou
Summary: Hinata Shouyou is in hospital with congenital heart failure. Tobio is the new resident working at the cardiology department. Somehow, they end up spending a lot of time together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I got this idea at the gym and I had to come home and write it. I needed doctor Kags, probably because I'm currently obsessed with K-drama [Doctor Stranger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B6G-izE1Jc). 
> 
> This will be a short story, two or three parts max.

Talking really doesn’t help, despite everything he’s been told. He has tried too many times to talk about it. But words don’t fix things, and they definitely don’t fix hearts.

He wanted to be a professional volleyball player, back in high school. He was even on the team. They were pretty good. And then _it_ happened, and suddenly he was here. He has been here for months now, hooked up to machines, the oxygen meter a steady weight on his finger.

He doesn’t remember when he last wore anything that wasn’t hospital pajamas.

_Congestive heart failure._

_Transplantation._

_Waitlist._

He’s been on the waiting list for so long, that was what the nurses have taken to calling him. _Waitlist._ They think he doesn’t know. He knows. He just doesn’t mind. To them, he’s just another patient who uses his ineffable charm and outward cheerfulness to make up for the fact that he’s dying because his own body doesn’t know what it’s doing.

He taps out a rhythm on the small table next to his bed. On it, there are pictures, get-well cards, bottles with flowers in them – he’s gotten so many flowers that they’ve run out of vases. People keep sending him flowers even though it’s been months. He wonders whether there is some sort of end term for sympathy. He wonders when they’ll forget about him and leave him here to die.

The door slides open with a whoosh, and he finds himself looking at his physician.

“How are you today, Shouyou?” He asks, his genial smile wide on his face. Shouyou likes his smile, it’s a good smile for a doctor. It communicates that Sugawara can be trusted. And that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re stuck in a hospital bed. Trust your doctors even when they tell you they have no idea how to fix you.

Without a heart.

“As good as I can be,” Shouyou says cheerfully, and Sugawara accepts the answer even though he knows that Shouyou’s not really cheerful. He caught him crying last week and ever since then, Shouyou has been feeling like there was a void between the two of them. Like he has somehow broken the bond between doctor and patient by showing weakness. He feels bad for it, because Sugawara really is doing everything he can to bump him up on the list.

“I just wanted to introduce you to our new cardiology resident, he’ll be coming round to monitor you now,” Sugawara said with another smile. Shouyou nodded, accepting the words. He has been one of the best patients to show off to interns and residents because he’s the prime example of fatal disease meets good humor. They like talking to him because he makes it easier for them to forget that he’s dying. He’s not as miserable as the lady next door who’s sixty and throws things despite the fact that she has a busted heart valve. And he’s not as unpleasant as the six-year-old on the other side of the wall who’s grown up in hospitals.

He’s a safe choice.

“Come say hello, don’t be shy!” Sugawara calls towards the door. It opens one more time and Shouyou ends up staring at the guy behind it. He knows that face. He has seen it before.

“The King!” He squeals, and the man stops short, his white gown flapping to a dramatic stop at his knees. His eyes widen.

“Shrimp?”

The two of them exchange disbelieving glances.

“Do you two know each other?” Sugawara asks pleasantly, and Shouyou nods with enthusiasm, his heart monitor spiking to indicate his excitement.

“We played volleyball together in middle school once,” he said, smiling widely at the stern-looking brunet. The man hasn’t changed one little big; sure, he’s become older, they both have, but there was something so incredibly familiar about him that Shouyou’s sick heart gives a squeeze.

“You sucked,” the man said, and Sugawara prodded him in the ribs.

“Be nice, Kageyama. Hinata is our patient now, so you have to be respectful, no matter what kind of past you have in common.”

The man nods, strangely complacent. Shouyou remembers him as the defiant, snooty team member who wasn’t really part of his team. That one game that they did play together, he stood apart from the rest of the players, his water bottle gripped tightly in his hands as he surveyed the court with the eyes of a hawk. Apparently, he still has that habit, Shouyou thinks to himself. Kageyama seems as on-edge as ever, and Shouyou is starting to suspect that this is his baseline state.

“Well, I’ll let you two catch up. Hinata, Kageyama here might ask you some questions about how you’re feeling, since he’s learning the ropes around here, I hope that’s okay,” Sugawara says. Shouyou nods and the man bows out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Kageyama picks up his chart and reads over it. Shouyou can’t keep his eyes from him.

“What are you staring at?” The resident asks, and Shouyu lets out a little puff of air.

“You haven’t changed,” he says, voicing his previous thoughts. Kageyama’s eyebrow shoots up.

“I’d say the same but I hardly remember you,” he says smoothly, and Shouyou knows he’s lying. That makes him giddy for some reason, as if Kageyama knowing him were good news or something.

“You’re a doctor now,” he says instead of calling the man out. “How come?”

“Why not?” Kageyama asks, setting his chart aside.

“Well, you were pretty dumb in middle school,” Shouyou says with a deadpan expression on his face. Kageyama’s fists clench, but he can’t do anything rash, Shouyou is his patient now, and he’s milking it for what it’s worth.

“I guess I really did change then,” Kageyama mutters.

“I thought you were going to play volleyball professionally,” Shouyou says, changing tactics. Kageyama’s face darkens even more.

“So what?” He says, crossing his arms. The white coat makes him look even taller now that Shouyou thinks about it. “I guess making money is more tempting than chasing a ball around. What about you? How come you’re not in a league or something?”

Shouyou looks away. “I’m in a hospital bed, dumbass.”

“That’s right. And I’m your doctor,” Kageyama says. “How about we don’t talk about it, then?”

“Fine,” Shouyou says, letting out a frustrated little noise. Kageyama looks like he’s fighting a smirk.

And they don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about much, really, besides the occasional medical update that Tobio (somehow, he’s become Tobio over the course of the months) brings along with a pack of Pocky. Shouyou doesn’t know how he found out that he liked those, but it’s nice. Because it creates the illusion of Tobio caring.

He doesn’t really know if Tobio cares. He doesn’t strike Shouyou as a particularly caring person, if he were to be completely honest with himself.

He realizes that he was wrong sometime around a year after Tobio began his residency. The door slides open and he sees the future surgeon stomp into his room, his face red with anger. He slams himself onto a stool by Shouyou’s bedside and fumes in silence.

Shouyou lets him, because he knows that interfering with whatever train of thought Tobio is following would be dangerous.

Finally, Tobio speaks up, and what comes out of his mouth is nothing like what Shouyou expected.

“They pushed you back on the list again. Some priority patient just shows up and… takes the next available heart. Just because he’s dying faster,” Tobio says, and Shouyou wants to hug him.

But he doesn’t. Instead he looks down into his lap and nods.

“It’s okay. He needs it more than I do.”

“You do realize that you’re dying too.”

Their eyes meet and Shouyou considers being offended by the words. He isn’t, though, not really, because it’s a fact of life. He is dying because his heart is an asshole. And Tobio is angry at it too.

“Thank you,” the redhead finally says, and Tobio looks at him as if he’s nuts.

“What?” He asks, frowning. Shouyou shrugs amicably.

“It’s nice to know you care,” he says. Tobio bristles.

“You’re a patient under my supervision. Of course I’d be upset.”

“You know it’s more than that,” Shouyou says wistfully.

Tobio doesn’t disagree with him.

Somehow, throughout the hour that he spends in Shouyou’s room, clearly blowing off ICU duty, their fingers end up tangled together on top of Shouyou’s sheets. Neither of them brings it up.

Somehow, it doesn’t feel fragile at all.

They spend more and more time together until Tobio gets teased relentlessly by his fellow doctors about being in love with the damsel in distress. Shouyou bristles at the title, but he feels warm inside nevertheless. The nurses start treating him even nicer now, because they know that he’s Tobio’s favorite – and whoever gets to Tobio’s favorite might have a chance with Tobio himself. Or at least, that is their line of thinking.

Shouyou knows that it’s not the case because a year and a half after Tobio walked through the door of his hospital room, they kiss.

It’s strange, Shouyou’s first real kiss. He’s kissed his mom before, and his sister, and he even managed to experiment a little in high school with his friend Noya. But none of those kisses seem to count because Tobio’s are so much better.

Tobio kisses the same way as he treats patients. Shouyou has seen it many times, the way he handles other people’s sicknesses. He’s even wheeled himself into the ICU several times just to see Tobio at work. He kisses with precision and care, as if he’s stitching someone up or giving them medicine. And he permeates all of Shouyou’s body with his presence like an IV drip.

They kiss over Shouyou’s most recent angiogram. It’s not a movie, nor is it a play, or anything romantic by any means; but it will have to do.

Tobio’s lips are dry and a bit chapped, and Shouyou finds himself thinking that he tastes like rice porridge and carrots. That was probably what he had for lunch, then, he thinks, before he allows the thought to slip away, replacing it with the experience of being kissed by Tobio.

The next day, Tobio makes a feeble attempt to avoid him, and when Shouyou confronts him about it, thoroughly agitated, so much that his heart monitor starts beeping erratically, Tobio sinks to his knees by his bedside and talks about ethics and Shouyou being a patient and how he could lose his job and yadda yadda yadda. Shouyou tunes him out after a while, and strokes his hair while Tobio recounts his troubles going through medical school.

“Am I worth it, though?” He asks when Tobio is finished.

And Tobio nods without hesitation.

So it continues for a while. They kiss when there is nobody in the room. Shouyou’s parents seem to know there’s something going on between them, but they’re too happy to see a smile on their son’s face to really care that he may or may not be in love with his doctor. Tobio has a new bounce to his step, and Shouyou teases him about it. So does the rest of the ward.

It’s not perfect, Shouyou thinks, but it’s the best he can get, so he goes for it. He throws himself into it with his entire sick heart exposed, thrusting it into Tobio’s knowing hands.

And Tobio takes care of his heart, because that’s what cardiologists do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: okay, literally tho, what do you guy expect from tags that WARN YOU it's gonna be sad. Pls, guys if you can't handle sad, then don't proceed.

Shouyou honestly didn’t even know he had a bucket list until very recently. It’s strange, the more somber his doctors’ faces get, the longer the list becomes. Suddenly, there’s this weird desire to go out and play volleyball with Kageyama. Except he can’t because he’ll collapse and die without completing the list. He wants to go to a movie theater with Kageyama. Except he can’t because his immune system is too weak and if someone sneezes on him, he’s dead. He wants to go shopping for a skirt and wear it for Kageyama. Except he can’t because see above.

A lot of these things (well, _all_ of them, somehow) seem to involve being with Kageyama. Tobio. To Shouyou, above all patients, the severe-looking resident of the cardiology department is Tobio.

Tobio is different from Kageyama. Kageyama the doctor frowns a lot. He is busy and stern and a bit of an asshole, really. Tobio, on the other hand, has free time to hang out in Shouyou’s room even though he has ICU duty. Tobio makes Shouyou laugh by trying to find meaningful shapes in people’s angiograms. Tobio does weird things like pick his nose and wipe his hand on the side of his pants when he thinks nobody’s watching. Tobio is strangely caring in his own way – and though most people don’t get his kind of sincerity, Shouyou does and that’s all that matters.

Which is why Shouyou is nursing a horrendously large crush on Tobio. And Tobio knows because Tobio’s had his tongue down Shouyou’s throat multiple times by now.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Shouyou asks one day as they sit on the edge of his hospital bed. Tobio’s hand is holding Shouyou’s – he’s become quite good at not getting tangled in the various wires and drips that stick out of Shouyou’s skin.

“What do you mean?” Tobio asked. “We’re breaking a thousand ethical codes and hospital rules right now, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

Tobio sighs and glances out the window. It’s dark outside.

“I know that’s not what you’re asking,” he finally says. “But I think it’s okay as long as you want me here.”

“Of course I want you here, silly,” Shouyou says. He cocks his head to the side. “It’s just that… you know, with me being me, we can’t really do anything special together.”

“Like dates?” Tobio asks.

“Like having wild monkey sex,” Shouyou corrects him and Tobio sputters. He’s adorable like this, all red and flushed and nervous. Shouyou knows that sex makes Tobio uncomfortable and he takes advantage of the fact mercilessly. Except it’s also kind of cruel to himself, considering he can’t… do it either.

“At least I’ll die with some making out under my belt,” he says thoughtfully. Tobio pulls on his pinkie sharply – the only outward display of physical aggression he allows himself around Shouyou. The redhead winces but doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t apologize either. He knows that Tobio’s been thinking about it too, after all.

He’s been on the list so long he sometimes wonders if someone has deleted his name by accident. He asks Tobio to check. Tobio tells him it’s still there. Shouyou finds himself getting more and more depressed about it, so he stops asking after another month. He’s pretty sure Tobio still checks every single day, and a part of him wants to flutter around the hospital room when he thinks about it. About Tobio, hunched over the hospital computer, eyes running from line to line as he looks for Shouyou’s name on the list frantically.

“You know,” Tobio says one day. “I think we should start planning ahead.”

“Like what?” Shouyou asks, frowning. He doesn’t stop playing with Tobio’s fingers, though. “My funeral or something? I already decided I want to be cremated. It’s just easier that way. Takes up less space. Not that I take up a lot of space anyway, I’m pretty small-,”

“Not your funeral,” Tobio says, a bit crossly. Shouyou glances at him with interest. “I meant our future. Together. As in you and me, after you get out of here.”

Shouyou’s frown deepens.

“That sounds like setting ourselves up for disappointment.”

Tobio gives him an eloquent look and Shouyou sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “What do you have in mind?”

“I want to take you to my hometown,” Tobio replies immediately. It’s obvious that he’s been thinking about this and just raring to share with Shouyou. The redhead is touched.

“You want me to meet your parents?” Shouyou asks, smiling widely. “You’ve never told me anything about your family.”

“Not much to tell,” Tobio says with a shrug. “My dad has a store and my mom is a seamstress. It’s nothing big. Small town, few jobs to go around.”

“I bet they’re proud of you,” Shouyou says. “Being a doctor.”

“They’re okay with it. Mom still cries when I call sometimes,” Tobio says. “She thinks I’m growing up too fast.”

“Well, you _are_ a flagpole,” Shouyou says with a grin on his face. Tobio rolls his eyes.

“So, will you come with me? When you’re out of here?”

Shouyou grins and kisses him on the nose.

“Of course. I want to see your embarrassing baby pictures.”

Tobio threatens he’ll have his mom burn all of them. Shouyou knows that won’t ever happen.

* * *

Tobio gives him a ring. A plastic one, from one of those lollipops children carry around on their fingers. Well, he gives him the lollipop, too, but then he tells Shouyou that the ring matters. Shouyou understands. He can’t stop smiling when he goes into his next test that afternoon. He doesn’t even need to take the ring off, since it’s not magnetic. That’s convenient.

Tobio is so thoughtful, Shouyou thinks to himself.

The next day he shows the ring to his mom who smiles at him and then gives Tobio a kiss on the cheek that leaves him red-faced. Shouyou’s father looks like he’s about to make a speech but one look from his wife and son make him reconsider.

They do crossword puzzles together. They’re terrible at it.

Then they try playing cards. Shouyou suggests strip poker but he doesn’t know the rules. And it’s hard to strip with an IV attached to one’s arm.

They pretend the ceiling has constellations on it and they rename them after people.

They run out of people pretty fast.

Shouyou’s get-well cards get fewer and farther in between.

Tobio pretends he doesn’t notice. Instead, he brings Shouyou flowers one day.

Sunflowers. Of course they’re sunflowers.

That evening, he kisses Shouyou goodbye with a promise to see him the next morning.

He never does.

He gets a call around three in the morning that Shouyou has gone into arrest. He scrambles to get his car keys, pushes his feet into his sneakers and runs out. He drives fast, far too fast.

He never sees the truck coming.

Shouyou wakes up three days later to the beating of a new heart. Sugawara tells him that with a bittersweet expression on his face, as if he’s holding something back.

Nobody tells Shouyou anything – and he doesn’t ask because he’s too worn out from the surgery.

The drugs kick in before he can formulate a question in his head.

A week later, he is wheeled into his old room.

Tobio never visits him after the surgery.

Shouyou feels betrayed and he asks his mom to look for him. She bursts out crying.

He’s confused.

In several days, Sugawara declares him healthy. He just needs regular checkups on his new heart.

He has a heart now. A heart that’s healthy.

He texts Tobio but he never replies.

He calls him.

Tobio’s phone is out of service.

He demands that someone, _anyone_ tell him what happened.

They do.

He cries for several days. He doesn’t even remember anything from that time, just the pounding pain of tears in his skull and his chest feeling like his new heart was about to explode.

Tobio isn’t there anymore.

As soon as he gets out of the hospital, he goes to Miyagi.

He meets Tobio’s parents. They’re nice. Tobio’s mother cries a lot. Shouyou can relate.

He asks about the funeral.

They say Tobio’s been cremated. Shouyou thinks it’s not fair. He called it first.

He prays at the local temple for Tobio’s spirit.

His heart twinges.

At his next checkup, he asks Sugawara about his heart.

Sugawara says it’s confidential. He can’t tell Shouyou whose it was. He just says one thing that makes Shouyou scream. They have to sedate him to stop him.

Tobio was an organ donor. He was a match. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an awful human being.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to drop by [my tumblr.](http://haganenoheichou.tumblr.com)


End file.
